Health Update

Starting weight: 260 lbs.
Last week: 255 lbs.
This week: 255 lbs.

It looks like I am holding steady, but that won't last for long if I don't get back to exercising. I only exercised once this week. The DVDs are fun but I don't do them when ABM is home, and he was off three days this week. Walking in the morning before work was what worked for me last time. I stopped two years' ago because my portable radio died and I never got around to replacing it. Now I don't want to buy a cheap radio because what I really want is an mp3 player. I know -- excuses, excuses! I just hate walking in silence. Without music it is much too easy for me to cut my walk short. I need something to distract me from how much I hate exercise.

My food choices haven't be the greatest, either. I've been sticking to my Slim-Fast plan for breakfast and snacks but lunch and dinner have been a trial. I chose to make lunch my big meal because we have a cafeteria at work. Unfortunately, I haven't been making the healthiest choices. There is always a salad bar available but I can't bear to have cold food for lunch, so I gravitate toward the meat-and-two-veg option. Since this is the south, the vegetables are rarely steamed. This week we have had fried okra, fried cauliflower, vegetable and cheese casserole, etc. To make matters worse, I end up eating junk when I get home instead of having my Slim-Fast meal bar and a cup of soup. If I eat at my desk, it would be easier to stick to the original plan and have a meal bar for lunch. I have a feeling that my lunch buddy would try to talk me out of it, though. On my last job we didn't have a cafeteria and I couldn't get out for lunch, so bedtime snacking was my only big temptation.

I thought I was ready to change my eating and exercise habits, but I seem to be doing nothing but making excuses. Although I tend to roll my eyes when people connect overeating with emotional problems, I must admit that I eat for pleasure more than hunger. Don't any of you go all Dr. Phil on me in the comments :-). I'm just saying that food tends to be my drug of choice, after caffeine. In my mind, if I have to work at a boring job then I should at least be able to get a little pleasure from what I eat. Losing weight will enable me to stay alive longer for my kids and I'll be a little happier with what I see in the mirror, but it won't change the fact that I have to work for a living when I would rather be a housewife. Right now, eating healthy and exercising seems like just another obligation that I have to work into my schedule with very little payoff.